Miss Harrison talked on various subjects. They had been in Switzerland, and it had rained continuously; they had seen nothing but fog. They had come over the St. Gothard, and their carriage had broken down. They had been in Venice, and had found malaria there. They had been in Padua, Verona, and Bologna, and all three had become frightfully modern and iconoclastic. Nothing was in the least satisfactory, and Margaret had not been well; she was quite anxious about her.
Mr. Morgan "hoped" that it was nothing serious.
"I don't know whether it is or not," replied Miss Harrison. "Margaret is rather a serious sort of a person, I think."
She looked at him as if for confirmation, but he did not pursue the subject. Instead, he asked after her own health.
"Oh, I am as usual. It is only your real invalids who are always well; they enjoy their poor health, you know. And what have you been doing since I last saw you? I hope nothing out of the way. Let me see—Trieste and Tarascon; you have probably been in—Transylvania?"
"That would be somewhat out of the way, wouldn't it? But I have not been there; I have been in various nearer places, engaged rather systematically in amusing myself."
"Did you succeed? If you did you are a man of genius. One must have a rare genius, I think, to amuse one's self in that way at forty. Of course I mean thirty-five, you know; but forty is a better conversational word—it classifies. And you were amused?"
"Immensely."
"So much so that you have to come to Florence in September to rest after it!"
"Yes."